Obama Reflects on Kansas Shooting at Easter Prayer Breakfast

President Barack Obama delivers remarks April 14 during an Easter Prayer Breakfast in the East Room of the White House.

European Pressphoto Agency

WASHINGTON—President Barack Obama on Monday, reflecting on Easter and the shooting this weekend at a Jewish community center and a retirement home in a Kansas City suburb, said, “Nobody should have to worry about their security when gathering with their fellow believers.”

Mr. Obama, speaking at the beginning of an Easter prayer breakfast in the White House East Room, said the country is still learning details about the shootings but knows this much: “Innocent people were killed; their families were devastated. This violence has struck at the heart of the Jewish community in Kansas City.”

Three people died in the shootings Sunday at two locations in Overland Park, Kan., outside the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and at the Village Shalom senior-living community a few blocks away.

The man accused in the shooting is 73-year-old Frazier Glen Cross of Aurora, Mo., who was booked on Sunday, according to Lt. Steven Mailand, desk officer at the Johnson County Adult Detention Center.

The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, has said on its website that Mr. Cross also goes by the last name Miller and has been a vocal white supremacist and the former “Grand Dragon of the Carolina Ku Klux Klan.”

Two of the victims were Dr. William Lewis Corporon, 69 years old, and his 14-year-old grandson, Reat Griffin Underwood Losen, according to a statement from their family. Mr. Obama said they attended United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Kansas. A pastor at the church, Rev. Adam Hamilton, delivered the sermon at the prayer service at the National Cathedral on the day of Mr. Obama’s second inauguration, the president said.

Mr. Obama said Mr. Hamilton had to “break this terrible news to his congregation” during Palm Sunday services, a holy day marking Jesus Christ’s entry into Jerusalem before his crucifixion.

The president said this week, leading up to Easter Sunday, is a time to recognize that “there’s a lot of pain and a lot of sin and a lot of tragedy in this world, but we’re also overwhelmed by the grace of an awesome God.”

He also reflected on his recent visit with Pope Francis, who he said carries the spirit of God with him. “He implores us to see the inherent dignity in each human being,” the president said of Pope Francis. He said the pope’s humble deeds, like hugging the homeless and washing the feet of someone people normally overlook, “reminds us that all of us, no matter what our station, have an obligation to live righteously and that we all have an obligation to live humbly, because that’s, in fact, the example that we profess to follow.”

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